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Make More Do With Less

To the Editor:

The Governor's call for labor unions to re-open their contracts isn't such a bad idea, but should come only after the following happens:

1) The bankers will re-negotiate the interest rates they charge to the city, state and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They will agree to a longer pay-back plan, thus giving the MTA some breathing room. They say this is not the time to increase subway and bus fares when every study shows that lowering the fare increases ridership, reduces air pollution and — remember congestion pricing? — cuts asthma rates among poor kids;

2) Oil companies reduce the prices they charge to municipalities and the price of the oil they charge out-of-state electricity producers;

3) Electric, gas and phone company contracts with the city and state are re-opened;

4) Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg tell Senators Schumer and Clinton and the New York House delegation to vote no on any welfare checks for General Motors, AIG or any bank of ill repute until the City of New York gets its fair share of Federal largesse;

5) The shady operators who are responsible for the collapses of the financial markets tell the city and state they will lower the fees charged for bond sales and managing public-sector pension funds;

6) Contractors working on multi-billion dollar construction jobs (some with only one bidder) realize they can still finish the job, but they won't take as much of a profit. They re-open their contracts;

7) The owners of the Yankees and Mets agree that it is their patriotic duty to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in city and state subsidies;

8) Millionaires and billionaires, all writing from their vacation homes, agree to be taxed a small amount of money to help keep city and state services flowing. They promise not to move to Alabama if they have to pay a mere one percent extra on their bloated incomes;

9) The Mayor re-opens the Department of Education school bus contracts, worth more than $1 billion a year. The routes haven't been bid in nearly 30 years, and some owners have admitted to paying off union leaders and city inspectors so they would have advance notice of safety inspections! If there are no legitimate bidders, the MTA can take over the routes, keep the union contracts and cut out the middlemen.

So, as we can see, it will be a cold day in hell when workers in our state agree to dig themselves into deeper holes while everyone else gets rich.

JIM CALLAGHAN

Editor's note: Mr. Callaghan is a staff writer for the United Federation of Teachers newspaper.